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Soviet Poster Primer:

Although posters were produced in Russia before the Revolution, they were overshadowed by the remarkable propaganda posters of the Soviets. Lenin takes responsibility for creating the first truly modern propaganda machine, from postage stamps and Mayday parades to monumental sculptures. Perhaps its most colorful, dramatic and pervasive form was the poster.

The Soviet art of propaganda falls into five main periods:

The Bolshevik Era (1917-1921) was a life and death struggle for the Bolsheviks and their ideology. The propaganda poster was everywhere, as the Bolsheviks struggled to win the Civil War against the Whites and fought the Poles over control of the Ukraine and parts of modern day Belarus. The early Soviet poster - an incredible 3600 designs - was remarkable for its revolutionary fervor and biting wit. Powerful visual symbols were invented, like the red star and hammer and sickle.Leading Artists:Apsit, Cheremnyk, Denisovsky, Kochergin, Lissitsky, Malyutin, Mayakovsky & Moor

The New Economic Policy(1921 - 1927) was a period of recovery and relative freedom for a country ravaged by war, famine and bitter discontent. The period is dominated by brand and store advertising for the flourishing class of tolerated small capitalists, and a remarkable outpouring of silent film posters for the entertainment and education of the masses. These Roaring Twenties posters would revolutionize the art of the 20th Century with their avant-garde Constructivist style that matched the spirit of films like Battleship Potemkin and Man with a Movie Camera. Leading Artists: Dlugach, Gerasimovich, Lavinsky, Lebedev, Prusakov, Rodchenko, Vladimir & Georgi Stenberg

The First and Second Five Year Plans (1928-1937) were Stalin's draconian push to convert Russia into a fully communist industrialized power. The jarring, pioneering photomontage posters of the First Five Year plan echoed the heroic side of this effort, only to be followed by the purges of the late '30s and the retreat from avant-garde art in the Second Plan period to the more prosaic Social Realism.Leading Artists: Deineka, Dolgurokov, Klutsis, Kulagina, Lebedev & Semenova

The Great Patriotic War (1939-1945) brought a revival of the great age of the Bolshevik poster. Hitler's all-out attack in 1941 forced a return to the symbolism of the Civil War era to fan the patriotic fires of the heartland.Leading Artists: Dolgurokov, Gavorkov, Sokolov-Skalya, Solovyov

The Cold War (1946-1984) brought a return to "Social Realism," with utopian views of Russia and Joseph Stalin predominating. During the Sixties, the best images featured Viet Nam, the space race and imperialism. As Perestroika(1984 - Present) dawned, the most powerful images were protest posters created and posted at great personal risk.Leading Artists:Koretsky